As a salmon eater, I'm glad to know that record number of salmon have been observed in the Columbia River.

That said, looking at salmon populations throughout the Pacific Northwest, my earlier point is still valid.

Below is a link to a 2008 article which notes that salmon populations have begun to increase in the Columbia River. The same article states the following:

Today, salmon are extinct in almost 40 percent of the rivers where they were known to exist in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, fisheries scientist and author Jim Lichatowich has reported. The National Research Council reported in 1996 that salmon populations are at risk of extinction in 44 percent of the streams where they remain. In 1991, Lichatowich and two other scientists, Willa Nehlsen and Jack Williams, reported in Fisheries, the journal of the American Fisheries Society, that 214 native, naturally spawning runs of salmon, steelhead and sea-run cutthroat trout in those states were at risk of extinction, and of these 101 were at high risk, 58 were at moderate risk, 54 were considered stocks of special concern, and one was classified as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Of the 214 stocks considered at some risk of extinction, 76 were in the Columbia River Basin. The authors also reported that at least 106 major stocks in the four states already had gone extinct.

In March 2000, scientists for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reported on their updated computer modeling of extinction probabilities for Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead stocks. Their conclusion: the fish were worse off than had been believed previously. Outmigrations of juvenile salmon and steelhead from Idaho between 1990 and 1994 were the worst since fish and wildlife agencies began keeping records, and the adult returns that resulted were low, the scientists reported.

Northwest Council

Thus, while rearing plenty of salmon at hatcheries along the Columbia River appears to have been a successful strategy for greatly increasing salmon populations, it has not resulted in general reversal of salmon declines elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest.